


blood is thick after all

by jamesiee



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Day 2: Friendship, Description of Menstruation, Gen, Menstruation, OMGCPWomenWeek, women of Check Please!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-18
Updated: 2017-09-18
Packaged: 2018-12-31 07:04:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12127116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jamesiee/pseuds/jamesiee
Summary: The story of how Esther Shapiro meets her best friend involves a lot more blood than you'd expect.





	blood is thick after all

**Author's Note:**

> No romantic pairing here, just some good old friendship feels. 
> 
> Completely unbeta'd so any spelling or grammar mistakes are my own. 
> 
> Major warning for descriptions of menstruation and all the fun things that come with it, though nothing too graphic (correct me if I'm wrong though!)
> 
> For Day 2 of [OMGCheckPlease Women Week](https://omgcpwomen.tumblr.com/post/164669990232/omgcheckplease-women-week-september-17-23-2017): Friendship

Esther is is in her Society of Modern Day China lecture when she feels it happen; a muscle contracts deep below her belly and from there a warmth spreads down. She knows it won’t help anything, but Esther presses her thighs together and kegels like her life depends on it.  

She’s had cramps since the night before, a wild craving for chocolate for the past two days, and has just got her pre-period breakout under control so getting her period isn’t completely unexpected. 

But she had read her schedule wrong last when she was packing her school bag and realized it was Tuesday and not actually Wednesday as she was scarfing down breakfast. While rushing around to repack her bag with what she needed for the day, Esther hadn’t had time to put in her diva cup, something that she tried to do when she thought her period was close to prevent something like getting her period in the middle of the a three hour lecture. Or rather, at the start of the three hour lecture; Dr. Hsiung has just clicked past the introduction slide to today’s topic. 

Esther sighs. She tries to move her lower body as little as possible, keeping her knees pressed firmly together, while she bends forward to drag her backpack closer. She unzips as slowly as possible so she doesn’t distract from the lecture. She’s already dreading having to be that annoying person who gets up while the professor is speaking to go to the bathroom. She hates to leave a lecture, especially when Dr. Hsiung is generous enough to gives two breaks at the top of every hour, but Esther knows her flow well enough that she doesn’t have long before the situation turns dire. 

Esther’s successfully in quietly getting her hand into the pocket where she normally keeps her diva cup. She’s unsuccessful in finding it though. 

“Shit,” she mutters, only starting to panic when she can't feel a tampon or pad wrapper in the pocket either. The feeling of dread grows substantially as she remembers last month  when she used her last extra pad for the end of her flow; remembers making a mental note to restock. Evidently she forgot.

She sits back in her seat, tilting her pelvis so that gravity doesn’t quicken the process blood leaving her vagina. She knows it’ll be a lost cause once she stands up, but she wants to have a plan before she does. Esther picks up her pencil and quickly writes down the subheadings on the slide Dr. Hsiung is showing, so at least she’ll be able to look up what they talked about in class, all the while considering how best to deal with the situation in her pants. 

Leaving and going home to get something isn’t an option until the break period. Dr. Hsiung won’t mean to embarrass her in front of the class, but she will ask where Esther is going if she gets up in the middle of lecture and brings her bag with her. Esther has seen her do it before. So that means if Esther leaves to go to the bathroom now, she’ll have to come back, probably with the knowledge that’s a blood stain on the seat of her pants---which sounds very close to what Esther imagines hell to be like. She had her fair share of period mishaps in middle school when she was learning how to deal with it, and it’s a hell of a lot of worse to know you’ve bleed through. Ignorance is bliss and all. 

Esther is about to send out an SOS text to all of her friends in hopes that someone is nearby with a stash of period products when someone taps on her shoulder. Esther instinctively looks down first, checking to see if she spent too long thinking about what to do and is now sitting in an obvious puddle of blood that other people can see. She’s in the clear, but is still apprehensive when she turns.

She doesn’t immediately recognize the face of the girl who tapped her shoulder; all of her attention is on the pad that she’s holding out for Esther. The girl shakes the pad a little when Esther doesn’t immediately take it. Her smile is kind enough that Esther can’t even find it in herself to be embarrassed that she takes a pad off a stranger without saying thank you, glad that her row is practically empty so she doesn’t need to step over anyone to get out of the classroom. 

Once, in the hallway Esther wants to run down to the closest bathroom, but she her underwear feels weirdly heavy so the fastest she’s able to move is an awkward waddle. She almost jumps out of skin when an arm sneaks past her to push the door to the women’s bathroom open. 

It’s the girl that gave her the pad, still smiling kindly. She gestures for Esther to go through. 

“Uh, thank you,” Esther says. She mostly means for the pad; she’s very confused as to why the girl decided to come open the door for her. 

“Of course,” the girl replies, cheerfully. “I’m Sam by the way.”

“Esther,” Esther says, nodding awkwardly. She really didn’t come into the bathroom to talk so she takes a step towards the stalls but Sam doesn’t take the hint and continues,

“Look, this is really awkward but um, you’ve bled through?” Sam says, looking apologetic. 

“Yeah.” Esther blows out a breath through her nose, she knew it was happening but having it confirmed really sucks. There’s no doubt that now she’ll have to make a walk of shame back into the classroom to get her backpack so she can leave to change into clean clothes. She wonders if this’ll be the week Dr. Hsiung posts her powerpoints online so she doesn’t miss out on any lecture material. “I’m just gonna go-” Esther gestures towards the stalls and Sam nods, biting her lip and looking just as awkward as Esther feels but doing nothing to change it. 

Once she’s locked in the stall, Esther pulls her pants down and sits on the toilet, bracing for the murder scene in her pants. She soaks up as much blood as she can with the thin toilet paper before she peels open the pad and hopes that it’ll stick to her slightly damp underwear. She wipes away more blood before flushing and pulling her pants back up. She still feels gross, but having the security of a pad makes her feel like the walk home is manageable, even with a stain covering half her ass. 

Sam is still leaning against the sinks when Esther goes to wash her hands, but she’s no longer wearing the flannel that she came in with. 

“Here.” For the second time, Sam is holding something out for Esther to take. Again, Esther just stares at the offered item until Sam shakes the flannel. “Take it! You need it more than I do I think,” Sam says, not unkindly. Esther takes it but isn’t sure what Sam wants her to do with it until she motions like she’s tying something around her waist and  _ oh _ . 

“I don’t want to get blood on it,” Esther says, touched beyond belief by how nice Sam is being. Her fingers unconsciously clench in the soft fabric of the flannel. 

“Don’t worry about it, I’m used to getting blood out of clothes,” Sam says, shrugging. 

“Um.” Esther really isn’t sure what to make of that comment, but she swings the flannel so the body of it would cover her bum. Sam’s eyebrows go up as she realizes what she said and her cheeks colour. 

“Oh jeez, not like  _ murder _ blood,” she says. “I’m on the rugby team and get a lot of bloody noses during games.” Sam shrugs. “Plus y’know, my period comes when it wants to so I’d ruin at least one pair of undies if I didn’t know how salt and cold water lift blood stains like nothing else.” 

Esther snorts and finishes tying the sleeves around her hips. Sam tweaks it slightly before leading the way out of the bathroom. They walk half the hallway in silence, Esther waddling slightly again so as to not dislodge the pad. 

“If you wanna go home and change, I can lend you my notes later,” Sam says suddenly. “They’re usually decent.”

“Holy shit, you’re a real life angel,” Esther replies, completely serious. 

Sam barks out a laugh. “No, I’ve just been where you are and it sucks. Look, give me your number and I’ll text you when this is finished and if you’re up to it, we can meet for coffee or something.”

Esther stares at Sam for another beat before handing her her phone and letting Sam text herself off it. She rushes back into the classroom and to her seat, throwing her notebook into her backpack as quietly as possible, before mouthing something along the lines of “family emergency” to Dr. Hsiung as she leaves the classroom for good this time. 

Meeting Sam after lecture has ended and Esther has showered and put her diva cup in is much less awkward that Esther expected. 

Coversation between them is easy and coffee turns into dinner, turns into adding each other on Facebook and Snapchat and Instagram; turns into the story of how Esther met her best friend. 

After all, blood is thick or whatever.  

**Author's Note:**

> My [tumblr](http://pongpalace.tumblr.com) if you wanna come hang out :)


End file.
